


Hunk-a-hunk-a Burning (Something)

by CSM_Scriptator



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-30
Updated: 2015-01-28
Packaged: 2018-03-04 08:35:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3056237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CSM_Scriptator/pseuds/CSM_Scriptator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a day at the Sunnydale Fair</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Closet to Frying Pan

“Look, I know nothing here is normal – Hellmouth and so on – but when I said I’d come, I didn’t imagine the programme included a magician whose hands ‘d turn into flamethrowers !!”

“Will you keep quiet ? He’ll hear you !”

There really wasn’t much room in the storage closet (especially when you allowed for the fire-extinguisher and the first-aid kit which the Health Regulations required) and it was nearly too dark to see, but at least, Xander Harris reflected, it was somewhere neither shouty nor flamey).

“No – ” Cordelia Chase replied, “I think Buffy and Willow got him to chase them. Having your priceless magical cabinet trashed might just do that – would for me.”

“Then we’ve got to go help !”

“Are you serious ! In these shoes ? And I just had my hair -- !!”

 

Xander stifled the protests by the expedient of grabbing Cordelia and trying to stuff his tongue down her throat,.

“Well – “

“If I go out there and he kills me, then you’ll never get a kiss like that again.”

“I know and yadda-yadda Willow will never forgive me.” Cordelia rummaged briefly in the darkness, produced a floor-mop, albeit held rather tentatively, and said “Okay – open the door.”

 

Mysterissmo's pavilion was a jumbled mess, but of life there was no sign. Xander checked it out, then waved Cordy out of the closet.

“I think it’s – “

Something moved amid the mess, Coredelia half-stifled her own scream and brandished the mop. Fortunately not too close to Rupert Giles as he emerged from under what was left of the first, second, and third rows of the centre block of seats.

“Hey, G-man,” Xander said, brightly. “Any idea – ?”

“I have, I fear, been unconscious,” Giles replied: “I don’t suppose you two – ?”

“Not after the Napalm Jet Special,” Xander said, while Cordelia looked round, in case.

“We took refuge in the store cupboard,” she admitted.

“And Buffy ?” Giles looked round. “And Willow ?”

“I think Mysterissmo went after them,” Xander said; “Were you there when Buffy – ?”

“Wrecked the Cabinet ?” Giles responded: “I rather think a piece of it may have been my downfall.”

 

“Oh, my God, what happened ?” Murray Organdaz sounded devastated.

“There may have been a misunderstanding,” Xander said. “A disagreement.”

“Oh ?”

“We misunderstood,” Xander added: “We thought this was a ‘family-friendly’ fairground.

“Yes – “ Cordy said, with asperity (and a shake of her mop), “Whereas your magician thought it appropriate to try to kill us”

“I’m sorry ?”

“And when we disagreed with the idea, he seemed taken a little aback and tried to burn us alive,” Xander completed.

“Were you aware that you had a pyromancer among your staff ?” Giles asked the fairground manager. “Who was – or is – also a psychopath ?”

 


	2. Super-Sized and Stenchy

Once more, Mysterissmo’s hands disappeared into the cloudy darkness, and the dizzying vortical effect assaulted the eyes. 

 

But this time the Slayer was ready. Instead of running away, or trying to dodge, Buffy somersaulted right at the mage and, arriving at his feet, thrust her hand out at him. 

The cloud of silver dust sailed into the vertiginous darkness around Mysterissomo and seemed to erupt with blinding white fire. Buffy recoiled at once, and Mysterissmo hurled himself aside from the fiery rush.

In retrospect he might have preferred to go in the other direction ─ he was still trying to regain his balance when Willow hurled the holy water over him and followed that with the woven ivy-chain.

“Nature, bind the unnatural; binding, bear away the unclean power. Forces of Order, counter Chaos, I call to you this hour.”

Buffy shoulder-rolled, and regained her feet, to see Mysterissmo striving to get clear of a spiral of greenery, which was rapidly threatening to engulf him. Willow stood, hands out-stretched, and as Buffy watched the magician threw himself at her wiccan friend. Buffy dived forward and pulled Willow out of the way, just in case, and then turned back to confront the self-styled Master of Magic. 

She found that, by now, the magician was thoroughly wrapped in the vegetation which Willow’s hasty spell had conjured into sudden life.

“Nice move, Will ... now we should perhaps get clear before – “

A roar and a crashing sound drew her attention back to the fairground.

“Oops,” Willow said: “Maybe that Bound Spirit wasn’t an illusion after all.”

The growling sound which followed was of a volume and ferocity that even the Slayer decided that discretion, if not valour, called for a tactical withdrawal. Plus Willow needed time to work out what among her limited arsenal of magic might be most effective.

 

“I never wanted this,” Cordelia insisted, as she, Giles, and Xander hurtled pell-mell through the carnival booths and straight-ways. Un-bound, the Spirit had proved to be eighteen feet of understandably-peeved Nether-World denizen, in a shade of pinkish-purple which clashed with absolutely everything Cordelia could think of, and stank of stale cheap perfume (Harlot Sweat”, as Cordelia had once called it, when Aura looked like buying some, in a week when Cordy’s Platinum card had been a teeny bit overstretched).

Foiled of its captor, it had turned on the three of them as substitutes on which to take out its wrath on the ground (to Cordelia, an arguable one – but not then or there) that they were of the same species as its former captor. Fortunately neither speed nor dexterity nor supreme intellect had been among its native Nether-World qualities, and so far, by running flat out (and ruining her expensive Italian pumps), Cordelia had been able to stay ahead of it. She knew that Giles had, too, because his Tweed-and-muffins accent had kept announcing the facts he had been able to recall about this sort of extra-normal baddie. Cordelia wasn't bothering to remember any of it – half of it was so esoteric she hardly understood it, and the rest seemed obsessed with the disembowelling (God, why had her vocabulary been made to expand in quite these directions?) and eviscerating talents of such creatures.

She presumed Xander Harris was still alive, too. She hadn't heard him die, and it would be a shame if, having exerted herself to try to break him in as a kisser (less slobber, more technique), she was fated to lose him (even if the Sunnydale High supply closets and the front seat of the Queen C were hardly her highest-rated sites for smootchy-sessions (and that phrase was Willow Rosenberg’s fault).

Then she turned a sharp corner by the Deep-Fried Corndog stand, and came face-to-face with a sight she had never imagined seeing.


	3. Not-A-Good Day Afternoon

The Bound Spirit had taken on the form of a pig-headed, slightly pot-bellied, thing that walked upright. But, intermittently, it momentarily dissolved and reformed itself into and from an amorphous greasy smoke.

 

“Not liking that,” Buffy commented: “Too easy to miss the vital strike.”

“No sooner said,” Willow replied. She pulled her book from her backpack, leafed through, then spoke three words.

With a howl, the creature reformed into solidity. 

“There – Mr. Misty won’t mist again for a while, “ Willow said, as Buffy staked it, robustly.

“Good stuff, Will. Giles been tutoring you again – or have you been sneaking peeks at his private collection again?”

Any reply became a little superfluous, as the staked Spirit reacted, not by dissolving into Nether-World-ly nothingness, but by howling again, and swiping out with a long, be-clawed, arm.

Buffy dodged one way, Willow another. The Spirit started towards the wiccan, but changed its mind when Buffy pulled out a reserve dagger and planted it squarely into its meaty thigh (which was conveniently just above Slayer head-height). 

“Got your attention, have I? Good – now follow me!”

Buffy set her speed at just beyond the creature’s stolid shuffling pace, and made sure she stayed where it could see her, to make sure it didn’t get tempted to run back. Once or twice it hesitated, and looked back, towards Willow. At those points Buffy danced it and smacked it with a scaffold pole she had thoughtfully liberated from a part-demolished fair-stall which had formerly been selling stuffed winged monkeys.

Behind her, Willow was concentrating on her spell-book, searching it for the most effective exorcism against the Bound Spirit. Which probably explained why it wasn’t until the spell expired that she realised that Mysterissmo was free from the ivy-binding.

“Whoops!” she though, as she heard him cry out his demand for vengeance, for both his Cabinet (which had been meant to steal souls, to appease the Bound Spirit) and the Spirit, now no longer Bound.

And since she didn’t think that being found would be too good an idea, not without Buffy to lend the Militant Force to Willow’s Mystic Power, she took shelter under a convenient drop-cloth.

 

Buffy Summers also heard Mysterissmo’s cry of rage. As did the Bound Spirit. The one recognised it as a possible threat, but less so than the Nether-Worlder still following her. The other knew it as an enemy, but also rated it as of less importance than the irritating little snip who was tormenting him and also challenging his authority as an Enforcer for Chaos. Why, if news of this ever got round Below, he would be a laughing stock, and his compeers would queue up to give his Name to conjurers to enable him to be Bound rather than they.

Neither of them (Buffy and the Bound Spirit) would have been quite so dismissive of Mysterissmo had they been able to see him, stalking back to his ruined pavilion and there collecting together a mass of semi-derelict materials before, with a wave of his hand and two semi-unpronounceable Words, imbuing them with life.

Then, with his construct standing, swaying slightly, awaiting his orders, he turned to the matter of his revenge. His Bound Spirit might be gene, but he was certain that the teen hooligan who had ruined his magical soul-stealing Cabinet was still on the fairground somewhere. Inside his jacket was a pocket, and within it, in a hyper-spatial locale, was his other mystical artefact, the Mirror of Polished Adamant.

Two passes across its face brought it to life, and a third focussed it to his will – to finding the girl, and her friends. In the Mirror he saw an image of the fairground, and on it were small red stars which marked out the people he wanted.

He fixed in his mind the location of the closest, and set off at a stride, gesturing the construct to follow.


	4. "Do you Think ..."

The Construct had no will of its own :: all that it did was at its creator-master’s command. But that particular command – ‘Divine Wind’ – was one ingrained within it. And since it had no will, the fact that the command terminated its existence did not trouble it.

So it collapsed itself upon its attacker, sending Buffy Summers to the ground in a pile of mixed (and sharp-edged) junk.

Mysterissmo switched his attention to his second problem, and cast a spell of Delay at the Bound Spirit, followed by a second to make it more amenable to his expressed desires. The trouble was, before he could get round to enunciating his desire for it to work with him once more (and in his mind ‘with’ meant ‘for’), he was distracted. The girl with the irritating voice was suggesting several very insulting things about him, not least that his mother would blanch to see him. Mysterisssmo was not so far gone in evil to have forgotten his mother – indeed, since it had been her attitude that had first caused him to research into the Arts Sinister (in order to find a way to shut her up), she was still an integral part of his self-image. He tried to cast the second part of the spell, but the roar from the Spirit inclined him to the view that something had misfired. And meanwhile the fighty girl was getting out of the pile of junk, and didn’t exactly look as if she’d been subdued.

 

As far as Buffy was concerned, enough was enough. Trying to incinerate her, as part of a magic show, had given her a poor impression of the conjurer. But he might have just been cack-handed and (literally) fired something off in error. But dropping household junk on her .... 

And she suspected the thing had been meant to attack her, had she not got to it sooner.

All of which pointed to Mysterissmo as being the principal source of Sunnydale’s latest trouble, and someone the sooner dealt with the better. For once, she decided, she didn’t need a Watcher to point it out – she had been able to work it out for herself. She might, had he shown any sign of being other than what he appeared to be, to have tempered her blows with mercy, but seeing that Mysterissmo seemed concentrated on killing them, and on working alongside a three-man-high demonic thing ... she went in full-force. 

Mysterissmo barely had time to register that fighty-girl was on her way towards him, much less trigger another Incendiary Immolation spell before she was in front of him, then to one side, delivering three hammering elbow strikes, then at the other, numbing his leg with one kick, and taking him down with a second, higher one, and finally over him, knocking him out with one precise blow to the base of the skull. He dropped like a stone.

 

The Bound Spirit took another step, and paused – its former captor was being subdued, without it having to do anything. It hesitated while intelligence warred with the demonic nature to consume all regardless.

“Nature calm the unnatural; Order subdue Chaos; Harmony balance the Warring Powers into Tranquillity.”

Willow brought her hands down, and waited. The Spirit seemed, momentarily, placated.

“Buffy,” she called, “Step away from the guy – everyone else, get clear – five or six paces back, at least.” 

 

For Murray Organdaz that was a command for which he had been yearning, and he took to his heels – if anyone asked, then he could say that someone else had warned him of danger and told him to run.

Cordy considered sarcasm, but Xander tongue-locked her even as she drew breath, and also pulled her down under a nearly collapsed pavilion, and found things to do with his hands that sufficiently drove sarcasm from her mind.

Willow saw that Buffy was getting distance between her and the fallen Mysterissmo; on the other hand, some learned instinct was telling her that the Bound Spirit would only remain quiescent for so long ...

“Giles – I need something to get tall-and-gruesome to go home!” she hissed.

“I’m not sure ... without my books, I mean – ”

The Spirit suddenly gave a gigantic howl, and lunged at the Slayer. Buffy ducked, and rolled out of the way, but the Spirit didn’t seem inclined to leave things at that, and kept coming.

Willow gasped, and tried hard not to panic.

“No time, Giles, she said: “I need an – ” “ _answer_ ” had been the word coming to mind, but now she thought she had one.

The initial spell was easy – she and Buffy had used it a number of times: it opened a comprehensible channel of communication (Willow didn’t know the mechanics, but since it worked ... ) with demons, no matter how inarticulate they normally were. She cast it, and then addressed the Bound Spirit.

“I know you can hear me, can understand me . We mean you no ill: if you wish to leave this place and return to your own domain, we will not impede you.” 

She was a little embarrassed by how formal the spell made her sound, but, again, since it worked ...

“I was brought here against my will. I will only depart on my own terms. Surrender to me and make amends for my imprisonment and I will consider whether more is needed.”

“We didn’t summon you,” Willow said. “We didn’t imprison you.”

“If you will not surrender, then I will fight you. Fight you and destroy you. Destroy you and consume you.”

“This doesn’t have to end in a fight,” Willow replied calmly. “Know that the girl whom you face is the Slayer – she eats demons for breakfast.”

The Spirit roared in reply, turned to face Willow and spat a ball of phlegm at her. It was roast-red and smelled of sulphur.

“Avaunt!” Willow shouted, as she ducked to one side. The vile ball swerved mid-flight and missed her.

But the Spirit had erred in taking its eye off the Slayer.

“No-one threatens a friend of mine!” Buffy shouted, ducked in and punched the demon in the thigh, before slamming her heel down really hard on the Spirit’s own foot. 

It took a few seconds for the Spirit to react, then it roared again, and a grey shimmering swept over it, toe to top. For a moment its shape threatened to return to mist, but then Willow repeated two of her earlier words, and it froze back into solidity.

Giles, meanwhile, had reached into his coat and produced the silver dagger he carried in case of vampiric emergencies.

“This ought to work, to a degree,” he shouted, as he threw it to his Slayer.

Buffy scooped it out of the air effortlessly, and swept in round in the same movement, to stab it three times into the demon’s leg.

The Bound Spirit howled.

“You have hurt me!” It sounded surprised. Again it tried to return to mist, but it found itself still under Willow’s wiccan constraint, and the energy it expended and lost brought ti down in size to around the thirteen-foot mark.

Which, in turn, meant that Buffy’s next stabs were a lot closer to the regions it considered most delicate.

And whereas, here-to-fore, a good roar had intimidated the hapless humans, leaving them open to being consumed, these ones, it noticed, didn’t seemed cowed in the least.

 

Mysterissmo saw his chance and seized it. The fighty-girl was busy with the demonic Spirit he had formerly had Bound. Bothe of them looked engaged on one anther, as did the little red-head with the magic. So, if he just quietly crawled away, perhaps ...

“HEY!! Mister shoot-fire-from-my-fingers!!”

The girl was the irritating voice was looking straight at him, from under a gaudily-dyed pile of fabric that had to have been a pavilion, before he’d started wrecking the fair-ground. Then a young male face joined hers, and, recognising him, pulled the girl back.

But the damage had been done|: the Spirit’s attention had been drawn :: it had seen him. And it didn’t look pleased.

“My tormentor is here! He is among you!” the Spirit roared.

“Among – but not one of us!” Willow replied. “He tried to kill us.”

Buffy waved the silver dagger again.

“Give up, or you can have some more of this!!” she threatened the demon.

 

The Bound Spirit considered. It had its free will; it faced two foes, one of whom could (if she knew the Words) Bind it again; the other of whom held silver and knew how to use it. There was at least one more human there who had knowledge of demonics. There were losses to be cut.

“Give me my tormentor and allow me to go. I shall harm no-one else.”

“How can we trust you?” the Slayer-girl asked (though she did seem to be relaxing from immediate stabbation.

“I pledge my Word.”

“Speak that word,” Willow ordered.

The demon, with a little qualm, lest she use the word, muttered two syllables.

“Don’t let it take me,” Mysterissmo pleaded.

There was a moment of tableau, then the Spirit moved, with a preternatural speed it had not so far demonstrated, snatching the conjurer up.

“You are my rightful prey: by binding me you have bound yourself to me,” Willow heard it say. Then it turned its gaze on the humans before it.

“I shall go now – impede me at your peril.”

Willow nodded: “You have pledged: now depart and do not return.”

A swirling vortex opened over the fairground, and the Spirit, with Mysterissmo firmly in its grasp, stepped through.

 

As the vortex faded, Xander Harris gave vent to what was on all their minds: “Do you think the ice cream and mocha stand survived?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little longer than I meant, but that's what happens when I start out without any idea of where one of these is going.


End file.
